BBC news with Jerry Smit.

The United States has issued its most transient criticism yet to Israel's military operations in Gaza. The Pentagon said the conflict was killing and wounding too many Palestinian civilians. A spokesman, Colonel Steve Warren, said Israel had to do more to avoid civilian causalities.

The shelling of a UN facility that is housing innocent civilians who are fleeing violence is totally unacceptable and totally indefensible. And it is clear that we need our allies in Israel to do more to live up to the high standards they have set to themselves.

Earlier senior UN humanitarian officials made powerful pleas for help for Gaza during a briefing to the Security Council. One official Pierre Krähenbühl described the catastrophic human cost of the conflict, saying almost a quarter of a million displaced people were facing atrocities.

Speaking before the US criticism the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that with or without a ceasefire, Israel was determined to destroy tunnels built by Palestinian militants to infiltrate from Gaza. He said he will not accept any truce that did not allow Israel to complete its mission.

The World Health Organization is launching a 100-million-dollar initiative to combat the Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 700 people in West Africa. It says hundreds more medical personnel are required to tackle what it calls an unprecedented situation. The WHO director general will meet presidents of affected nations in Guinea on Friday to outline a coordinated response. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf from Liberia, one of the worst-hit countries, told the BBC the Ebola outbreak was catastrophic and more help was needed.

We need more in protective gear, we need more in the preventive things like the soaps and the chlorine, and all that goods of ease attracting, but more importantly, technical help.

Dutch and Australian forensic experts have for the first time this week reached the crash site for the downed Malaysian airliner in eastern Ukraine. The wreckage is scattered over a wide area controlled by pro-Russian rebels who've been accused of shooting the plane down. Previous attempts had to be abandoned because of a fighting nearby. The head of the recovery mission, uh, Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg said he is now cautiously optimistic about gaining uncontested access.

The security situation is still very unstable, that's why we are not absolutely sure if we can reach the crash site with the whole team of experts in the short future. But we are more hopeful than we were yesterday. Tomorrow we will try once again to reach the crash area. If we succeeded, the experts will carry out the limited searches at a few locations in that area.

You are listening to World News from the BBC.

A series of huge gas explosions in the southern Taiwanese city Kaohsiung have killed 15 people and injured more than 200 others. Pictures posted on social media show a huge ball of flame from blast so powerful they overturned cars and knocked down trees.

The imam of China's largest mosque in the city of Kashgar in Xinjiang has been killed. State media said Jume Tahir was stabbed by suspected Islamist militants of the Id Kah Mosque. His death comes two days after dozens of people were reportedly killed in clashes with the police in the same prefecture. Cherry Juhani reports.

Jume Tahir was from China's Muslim Uyghur community, appointed by the government to head the 600-year-old Id Kah Mosque. As a vocal supporter of the Chinese Government, he was reported to be unpopular with many Uyghurs who said they have been persecuted by Beijing. The campaign against the authorities has grown increasingly violent. Jume Tahir is reported to have spoken out against that campaign in his sermons, angering many who were waging it. Xinjiang Government said that two of three of Mr. Tahir's attackers had been shot dead by police and one had been arrested.

In a reversal of a previous denial, the director of the CIA John Brennan has apologized to the US Senate Intelligence Committee over accusations that his agents had spied on computers used by Committee members. In March, Mr. Brennan had insisted that nothing was further from the truth.

South Korea activists have said they would continue their campaign of reaching out to people in North Korea by using helium balloons to send their favorite chocolate and marshmallow snacks across the border. Choco-pies were offered as perks to North Koreans working in the Joint Industrial Zone at Kaesong. But the communist authorities ordered factories owners to stop handing them out, branding them a symbol of capitalism.

And that's the latest BBC News.